May 2009
Christians or only Consumers of Religion?	Show Menu

Mark Gretason

This article is reprinted, with permission, from the July 2008 issue of the Bulletin of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland

The historian Prof. H Koenigsberger was wont to remind his students that not all our forefathers were fools nor are all our contemporaries wise.

In a challenging article 'The First and Great Commandment: How are we doing?' (Hymn Society) The Revd Christopher Idle, a noted hymn writer, picks up a shift in attitude towards what it is that the Christian offers God whether individually or corporately. He seems to feel that a balance needs to be kept rather than a via media. Thus the changing moods of the Church's seasons have always been accommodated. Very few hymns chosen for Lent really fit the mood of Trinity, far less Easter. The Church has rightly picked up the psychological need of Christians to inhabit differing phases of mind in its corporate remembering which is at the heart of Christian worship. The long out-of-print Church Hymnal for the Christian Year attempted to plan both for seasons and moods around the central act of remembrance, the Anamnesis, itself. Perhaps this book was a little over organised; however, times have changed very considerably.

So what is missing from Mission Praise or wrong with it and its kind?

First, there is the well known shift towards the use of the first person in, for example, Mission Praise, which occupies a sort of points position between the branch line of tradition represented by The English Hymnal and that represented by the many descendants of Golden Bells.

Second, comes the modernisation of hymns (a thorny subject indeed!) into the second person when addressing Almighty God. Modern hymns tend strongly towards this form.

Third, there is a much vaunted saying that in order to appeal to the young and the unchurched one must meet them where they are. Thus, a large and successful church in the Diocese of Norwich has two types of service described as 'Quiet' and 'Family'. This church does not appear to use the 1662 Prayer Book at all. The 'Quiet' service is liturgical according to the loose forms allowed by Common Worship and one cannot set forth the changing structure of a family service.

Fourth, the type of section entitled 'Chiefly for private devotion' seems not longer to be found in modern hymnbooks.

What does all this mean? It is easy to become bogged down by the exceptions to general rules, to give up a line of argument because general rules are general. The generalities which follow have some value as such.

Those who wish to sell hymn books and the like are necessarily in the market place. What is sold is justified as an aid to worship 'understanded of the people' (Anglicans will be referring to Article XXIV) will assist numerical or spiritual growth. This is equally true of traditional and of house churches.

Second only to the sweet sound of one's own name comes 'I' and its concomitants. For instance 'Mine! Mine! Mine! I know thou art mine!' has a subtext, Me! Me! Me! I'm thinking of ME! This is not a quotation from a recent hymn, but it lacks a corporate dimension. If the body of Christ be rather more than a group of unconnected people who happen to be travelling in the train towards the same destination one would not think it so from some of the 'I' school of hymns.

And this is where an important distinction needs to be made and is so often missed. As individuals we may be justified through faith but we remain 'false and full of sin' as Charles Wesley puts it. It is the Church that is the Bride of Christ and only in that standing can she hope in figura Christi to address the Father.

Luther points out that all our good works are only sins forgiven. But there is a lack on penitential material in Mission Praise and suchlike.

The aspect of modernisation of hymns by changing 'Thee' to 'You' is another formative of Christian culture. Both T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis were chary of modernising the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Whilst a hymn writer or editor may have both a great personal reverence for God and adopt the You form, it is undoubtedly true that our democratic and egalitarian tendencies sit uncomfortably with human worship. Appellations such as 'Most Noble', 'Right Honourable' and 'Right Reverend' seem quaint if not faintly ridiculous. A lack of respect for human authority issues in a kind of theological republicanism. The Queen no longer has subjects but there are citizens of the EU. Thus Jesus is a kind of elected (and thus sackable) God so that congregations can glibly sing 'Jesus we enthrone you' without any awareness of what they have done in rendering the Incarnate Word into merely 'The Man for others.' One is reminded of Psalm 106:20.

In Mark 10: 17-22 we learn that faith is a response rather than something which can be purchased. Yet there appears to be a decline in the theological rigour of what is sung when it is considered that if the Roman Catholic Church is excluded from consideration, in many towns it is the house churches which attract the largest number of worshippers so that more choruses or songs are now sung than hymns. One can only wonder at the contrast between the Biblically rich, doctrinally secure, often beautifully crafted hymns of Charles Wesley as sung by the uneducated and what is sung by the relatively well-educated congre-gations of today. How are Christians forming these days?

Traditional hymnbooks, and this is a very rough and subjective estimate, contain just under a third of hymns attributable to Praise and Celebration, Devotion and Intimacy, and Discipleship and a little on Human Suffering and Doubt. However, the song genre is much lower on Discipleship and Doubt is almost banished. There are worthy exceptions of course but if God himself has been democratised so that, in the words of a former Headmaster of Bloxham 'He likes a jolly loud Hello! From his co-equals here below'’ He now delivers a form of unrealistic comfort food that would have been unknown to Cowper, Newton, Newman and Faber (to name but some), all of whom express self-doubt and find grace in Christ.

Catholic, Calvinist and Protestant know that grace is only ever free, never cheap. Should consumerism replace Christ in the Church, where will He be found?

Mark Gretason is rector of St Jude's Free Church of England, London and Senior Lecturer in Laws at London Metropolitan University, Barrister-at-Law, and Chaplain to the Central School of Religion.

m.gretason@londonmet.ac.uk
 

<<Previous | Next >>